response 326 of 409:

Dec 6 21:06 UTC 2000

From the numbers I've heard bandied about, my impression is that
throwing those ballots out is very likely to flip the results of the
election.  I believe I've heard "1500" and "60% republican" - those
particular numbers would drop Bush by 600 votes, which would put him
behind by 70 votes.  That may have been just one county, so if the
results are thrown out in both counties, there might be a larger shift.
Of course, this makes the hand-count court decisions even more
important, because if Bush succeeds in throwing out the hand counts and
going back to his original 930 count lead, losing 600 votes to absentee
ballots won't make the same difference.

Re #323, that word "*probably" is real interesting.  An amazing # of
people, including very probably many people who vote by absentee ballot,
work on the principle of "least hassle".  Grex picked up 25 members when
it was "less hassle" to become a member by credit card.  I'd bet a
significant # of those people didn't remember their election ID #, and
I'd also bet a significant number, either through forgetting that # or
for whatever reason, would not have bothered with the extra hassle
required to vote properly.

But, at this point, whether it would "*probably" have made a difference
or not doesn't matter.  Those 3,000 people who voted for Buchanan, or
19,000 who voted for both Gore and Buchanan, would likely not have made
that choice if it were available to them.  The as many as 1 in 3 people
who tried to vote in some precincts and were rejected because they
weren't on the rolls (apparently because they were thought to be felons)
would likely also have voted if the hassle of proving they weren't a
felon and were entitled to vote weren't so completely insurmountable.
The courts obviously weren't interested in what these other groups
"probably" would have done had they the opportunity, so I'm not at all
sure why they should be any more interested in this case.

I believe the interesting thing in this case is that it appears there
was in fact fradulent intent.  It's hard to argue the democrat who
designed the butterfly ballot intended her candidate to lose; it's a lot
easier to argue the republicans who acted to fix their own ballots while
opposing efforts to fix democratic ballots were in fact acting unfairly
and that the courts should act to correct this unfairness.  (Ok, ballot
applications, or whatever it was.)

Do you suppose when all the dust settles, that whomever ends up being
president might end up with a single digit lead over the loser?

response 328 of 409:

Dec 6 22:45 UTC 2000

At this point, it looks very likely the courts will end up being the
ones that recognize some particular count as being "The" count.  The two
parties may indulge in necrophilia after that, but I'd be very surprised
to see the courts at all interested in interferring with the actual
electoral college once it starts.  So yes, I expect that for practical
purposes, the dust will settle.

response 330 of 409:

Dec 7 01:24 UTC 2000

Really?  And just how does that qualify under the law as "fraud"?

response 332 of 409:

Dec 7 04:46 UTC 2000

There is also a relevent federal thingy that prohibits preventing any
person from being able to vote because of a defect in any paperwork. 
Thus the corrected defects (ID#'s) should be upheld by federal law. 
Also a seem to recall an even more rediculous florida case where
although elections officials were chastized in a ruling, the ballots
still were held as valid.

Incidently, the previous florida supremes case pushing back the deadline
for certification relies on affidavit that the DNC lawyer knew was wrong
- a citation of Illinois case was presented even though an ammended
affidavit was presented correcting a mistatement that was used as a
basis. Seems the DNC lawyer lied, what a surprise.  (Chicago Tribune) 

response 334 of 409:

Dec 7 06:10 UTC 2000

I think it would be nothing less than astounding if all the paperwork in
all these court cases were right - there's an awful lot of them, there's
a pretty big time crunch, & even if "the lawyer knew" that doesn't mean
the law clerk who actually wrote the text knew.

I'm pretty sure I've heard of past election court cases where the courts
*were* willing to discard a significant # of ballots under certain
circumstances.  I don't know what the federal thingy is, but it
obviously didn't help the "1 in 3" people who weren't on the rolls, so
there are clearly some pretty serious limits in that "thingy".  How the
"thingy" interacts with whatever the judges decide happened is clearly
going to be interesting.

response 336 of 409:

Dec 7 17:11 UTC 2000

That's a little sparse, let me elaborate:  If the courts don't come to a 
definitive answer (and get all necessary votes recounted) by, say, 
Monday (hah!), the Florida legislature will go ahead and appoint their 
own chosen slate of Bush electors "just in case".  Eventually (early 
January, I think) it comes time for the US Congress to approve the work 
of the nation's electors.  If, at that point, Gore has won his court 
cases and is declared the winner, then Congress has to choose between 
the Gore electors and the Florida-legislature-appointed Gore electors 
(and we all know how that will turn out).  

That's the simplified version.  It actually gets trickier in that the 
House is controlled by the Republicans, of course, but the Senate is 
50-50, with Al Gore getting the tie-breaking vote (all this is done by 
the newly elected congress, not the current one).  And there's something 
about how Jeb Bush could refuse to obey a court order to certify Gore 
the winner in Florida, thereby invalidating the Gore slate of electors. 
Or something.  It will certainly be interesting to watch.

response 338 of 409:

Dec 7 21:22 UTC 2000

Nah; the legislature will appoint them for Gore. ;)

response 340 of 409:

Dec 7 23:38 UTC 2000

 Fairly enough, if there's a decent split instead ofa close race.  When it
gets close then problems start coming out of the woodwork.

But the Republicans are really looking sleazy... all those "protesters" who
where swarming around the Dade County situation and frightening the canvassing
board?  Most of them were Republican House (US) staffers, flown down to
Florida to act as a mob.

response 342 of 409:

Dec 8 18:15 UTC 2000

They were probably able to dig up one or two locals to join in.

response 344 of 409:

Dec 8 20:10 UTC 2000

I'd like to think they'd care about that.  The reality, though, is that
this fits in very well with Republican philosophy.  They are very
gung-ho on "business", trickle-down economics, and "leadership".
Another way to put this is that they're into elitism - there are the
people in charge "at the top", who can be automatically trusted (as long
as they're "one of us"), and there are the unwashed masses, who
definitely can't be trusted (because they're a bunch of "them" in
there.) What the courts have said in these various cases is basically
that yes, the people on top actually do have quite a bit of latitude in
arranging for an unfair vote process, and that even if they're caught,
as long as they don't bend the rules too badly, they can get away with
it scott-free.

The thing the Republicans have going for them is greater consistency of
purpose, and a better memory for what they do and don't want.  In an
unfair contest, this gives them a special edge - because while the rest
of us are still worried about "what is fair", they can go right ahead
and complain about how unfair it is to count dimpled chad, without any
concern about fairness.  It's easy to do that, when your sense of
purpose is stronger than your sense of fairness.

response 346 of 409:

Dec 9 14:12 UTC 2000

I liked #344 too.

response 348 of 409:

Dec 10 00:36 UTC 2000

The fix is in; apparently the US Republican Supreme Court intends to void the 
contest provisions of Florida law.   The principles of federalism and 
judicial restraint must be scrapped if they are in the way of ramming 
Bush into office.

Scalia complains that Bush's legitimacy will be undermined if the 
Florida counts show that Gore is ahead when someone finally rams 
Bush into office.  But the ballots will be studied endlessly by the 
press under the FOIA laws, unless Scalia intends to order that the 
evidence be destroyed.  The conservative group Judicial Watch had
already been given access, and their examination of the ballots was 
cut short when they were trucked to Talahassee.